Derelict 3, Chapter 8.

Chapter 8.

Several more waves of attackers were fended off by Slater. Each group seemed to bring a bit more challenge to the fight, but his continued core improvements countered the increased ability of the attackers as he added a fourth and fifth reaper drone to his MOBS count. Income improved as well, nothing too exciting, but the later matches were brining in 500 credits instead of fifty. During one break in the fighting, the Chixturax were allowed to bring in a fresh crate of supplies. The windfall of salvage let him upgrade his reapers with even heavier shields and an assortment of hand grenades that he had remembered the designs for.

Nanobots permeated the entire four compartment area he was limited to, giving him clear vision when another group tried the smoke grenade trick again, his reapers cutting them down easily. The entrance to his area changed a couple of times, confusing Slater when the overhead entry hatch was pulled out and then replaced by a solid metal roof like in his other compartments. The wall with the other entrance also changed, there were now three hatches leading into the compartment from that direction.

A quick check with Hixrax confirmed that the arena core shard areas were modular and could be changed around quickly depending on the type of match they were going to engage in. A two-entry setup like he had started with was the default, but contenders could opt to pay some credits to alter their entry method. If they spent enough, entire walls could drop down to allow access from unexpected angles. The fact the front door had changed let Slater know the group that was coming next was willing to spend some credits to improve their chances.

The countdown timer started, and Slater arranged his defenders. Three were assigned to the entry compartment, any more than that and they started to get in each other’s way. With the remaining pair in the next compartment, he was confident in his defense. So far, the best a group had done was to disable two of his reapers. Several groups had taken casualties and then surrendered. When that occurred, the restraint dome would close over his core. The first time it happened, Slater took a few seconds to react, but eventually, he realized what was happening and shut down his reapers. It would be disaster for the administration to realize he was able to function even with the restraint dome over his core.

“Here we go, we should make bets on the makeup of each group of challengers,” Pixi said. Slater ignored the comment watching as the countdown timer ticked to zero. This time, the entire far wall of the entry compartment dropped to reveal a team of dwarves hunkered down behind three armored barriers. The barrel of weapons appeared in the small firing ports cut into the barriers as his reapers engaged the challengers. A strange bluish beam shot out and connected with one of his defenders. Slater could feel the connection to his reaper end as his core’s connection to the unit was severed.

The heavy armor piercing rounds from his defenders were chewing their way through the three shields, but more blue beams shot out, and the connections to his other two reapers in the compartment were severed. Wasting no time, the dwarves charged from behind their defenses and moved to the hatch leading to the next compartment. Slater wondered how much the dwarves had paid to have the whole wall open up and the fixed defenses placed for this challenge. Of course, his greater concern was just what kind of weapons were these dwarves using and how could he counter them.

“Do you want to use it? We haven’t seen that many defensive drones in the other battles,” one of the dwarves asked as the one nearest the hatch pulled out a small grenade.

“Yes, do you want to be the first to stick your head in there?” The dwarf with the grenade replied.

“Bah, throw away our money if you want,” the first dwarf complained.

“These cost twenty credits each, but the first clear bonus will more than make up for buying them,” the dwarf with the grenade replied. At his signal, one of the dwarves hit the control panel causing the hatch to swish open. The dwarf tossed the grenade in the room and the other one closed the hatch. They were fast, but his reapers were faster, a burst of fire poured through the opening, hitting the grenade chucking dwarf’s hand as the hatch closed. The exploding round pulped the dwarf’s hand, leaving him screaming on the deck as one of the others fumbled with a bandage from their medkit.

“Uh, oh, I think we just lost our first match, boss,” Pixi said as the grenade exploded, sending beams of the strange blue energy flashing into every corner of the room, and cutting his connection to the remaining reapers. The restraint dome closed over his core and all the hatches opened for the dwarves.

“What happens now?” Slater asked.

“No idea, we’ll have to wait to hear back from Hixrax. We need to find out what those weapons were and how we can counter them,” Pixi said, stating the obvious.

The dwarves began to cheer, all except for the injured one. They had gotten a bandage over the stump of his wrist, stopping the bleeding, but it would be a while before he was back in action. Slater believed the station had enough medical tech to regrow the missing hand or create a cybernetic replacement that functioned as well as the original. Whether the dwarf could afford it was another story, nothing came free on Sarton Station.

“I am sorry to see that we have attained our first defeat,” Hixrax said over the comm link.

“I doubt you’re sorrier than I am. Those beam weapons the dwarves used; can you find out what they were? I’m going to have to work up some way to counter them, otherwise, we’re never going to win,” Slater said.

“You did not know about the weapons? I would have thought a Derelict was well aware of signal disruption beams,” Hixrax said.

“Obviously not, what are they and what exactly do they do?” Slater asked.

“I do not have the technical details, let me find Ixlab, he can give a better description than myself,” Hixrax said. Slater cut the connection; he would have to wait for Ixlab to call in.

“So, what do we do now? The reapers were our best units, do we go back to meat-based MOBS?” Pixi asked.

“We may have to, at least until we hit 100% processing power and can research a solution,” For now, we’ll need to scrap the reapers and figure out something for our defenses,” Slater said. He had hoped the drones would reconnect with him at some point, but it didn’t look like that was happening. He took a peek at the latest stats, his core was nearly repaired, and the fights had been a big help, well, all the fights except for the last one, that didn’t seem to have accelerated his repairs at all.

Processing power is at 91%.

Current research: Locked, all processing resources are being used. Repair your core to reactivate research options.

Construction Drones: 12.

MOBS:

Reapers 0.

Fixed defenses: none.

XXXX: Locked.

He was so close, the healing had greatly increased the number of MOBS he could control, but with limited salvage, he had only been able to build a few Reapers inside the arena and had instead built more construction drones back with the Chixturax. He had used up all the salvage in Ixlab’s storage room and until they found a place to build their ships, he was out of things to do there.

“Ah, man, we were all the way up to a hundred followers. These Sarton Station viewers are fickle, I mean, we only lost one little match and they all run off to watch some other stupid core shard,” Pixi complained as Hixrax sent over the latest match data. Slater had asked for information on the other core shards to see how they ran things, but the Chixturax were slow in finding a way to stream them some video of the matches without triggering any of the surveillance systems looking for illegal streams of the games going out.

Sarton Station Ranking for the Hixrax core shard: 274/274.

Total views: 8345.

Victory/Defeat: 14/1.

Total kills: 96.

Favorite MOBS: Automated drones.

Fan favorite MOBS: Automated drones.

Number of fan followers: 14.

Credits earned in last match: 0.

“Hello Slater, Hixrax said you had a question on the disruption beams,” Ixlab said.

“Yes, what are they and how do we counter them,” Slater replied.

“Well, given you were out of touch with the universe for the last hundred years, you probably missed the changes in warfare that happened. When the human fleets defeated the Council, much of their success was due to boarding their enemy and using powerful combat drones, like the ones you used. The other races were fearful of human expansion and developed a countermeasure weapon. Disruption beams break the signal from the drone to the controller, leaving it nearly useless. These dwarves must have watched your previous battles and realized they had an opportunity. Disruption weapons aren’t usually seen anymore, but the station likely has them readily available,” Ixlab advised.

“Am I safe in assuming that, based on the popularity of the games, these don’t affect non-mechanical MOBS the same way?” Slater asked.

“Yes, a normal core interaction with their MOBS is not affected unless their MOBS are completely machine based,” Ixlab said.

“What about on starships? Do they use these beams to take out drone fighters and the like?” Slater asked.

“Typically, not. On a starship, dedicating a weapons hardpoint to a weapon that is only occasionally useful is a bad idea. When you think about it, mounting a scaled-up disruption beam would be no more effective than any other shipboard weapon system. If you hit a strike drone with a laser, kinetic weapon, or disruption beam, the result is all the same, destruction,” Ixlab replied. That was some good news, it meant his plans for enhancing the Franklin’spower by using strike drones was still possible.

“Wouldn’t the disruption beams hamper any technology? I know most tech is hardened against EMP, but these weapons seem to work on a different level,” Slater asked.

“The disruption beams only cut remote connections, if something is hardwired in, like the controls of a starship, they are not affected at all,” Ixlab said.

“So, how do I get around these weapons?” Slater asked.

“Create different MOBS. I assume you are able to, based on the Derelict information that I’ve researched,” Ixlab replied.

“Yes, thank you for your help Ixlab. I better get back to work,” Slater said, cutting the connection.

“Hey boss, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Pixi asked.

“Since you’re just part of me, I suppose I’m always thinking what you’re thinking,” Slater replied.

“No, stop trying to be snarky, that’s my job. Okay, so hear me out on this one. These disruption beams cut remote connections which means they cut out the drones, but not the connection between you and the flesh and blood MOBS since it doesn’t affect tissue. What about dropping the brain of one of our normal mobs into the reaper drones?” Pixi asked.

“You’re onto something there, Pixi, but how about this, we use the tech we’ve developed for the reapers and place that in our MOBS to enhance their abilities,” Slater suggested.

“Potato, po-ta-to, same difference, we mix meat and metal to kick more alien butt,” Pixi said.

“Yes, but we’ll have to wait until we can do some research again. For now, we do things the old-fashioned way,” Slater said as he got to work on building some MOBS.

He looked at what was available. He had done some good work on his kobolds and orcs. Slater wasn’t sure how much he had lost during his ordeal but did remember that he had scrapped a lot of future research into the regular MOBS when his reapers had proven so effective, a move he was now regretting. His MOBS filled very different roles. His kobolds were good shots, agile, but small and physically weak. The orcs were physically powerful, but had horrible aim, which was something he was working on mitigating before switching over to reapers.

With the reapers reprocessed, he had more salvage to work with as well as a considerable stack of biomass bricks. He ordered four kobolds to be printed up; he had the latest version with the integrated blades inside their arm for improved melee ability. The strain on his processing wasn’t all that bad after making them, they were all armed with human style assault rifles, scaled down to fit their grip but still using the same caliber of ammunition and sporting a razor-sharp bayonet. A pair of frag grenades rounded out their offensive firepower. To keep them in the fight longer, each kobold was fitted with body armor. They would be nowhere close to being as durable as his reapers, but a single shot from most weapons should be easily defeated by the armor.

To supplement his kobold shooters, Slater had his drones create a similar number of orcs. These were also armed with the assault rifles, grenades, and body armor that he had given to his kobolds. He didn’t have any schematics for wrist blades on the orcs and instead they would have to make do with the bayonet on their rifles. All his mobs were loaded out with seven magazines of ammo, six in pouches on their armored vest and one in the weapon. It should prove to be more than enough to last for even an extended fight. Just in case, Slater would still preplace extra ammunition around the compartments when he had the salvage to burn on it.

Normally, he would create a layered defense, slowly grinding down the opponents boarding his ship. Inside the arena, he needed to stop them as quickly as possible. To that end, he built a series of four barricades inside the entry compartment. His MOBS would have clear fields of fire and should be well protected until the enemy closed in or got a lucky shot.

There was more he wanted to do, but the salvage ran out as he made the finishing touches to his defenses. The first room would be defended by a kobold and orc behind each barricade. While the barricades would provide good cover from the front and curved slightly to protect the flanks, they were open to the top and rear, something he would have to fix when he had the salvage to do so.

With the eight MOBS completed, Slater still felt he could control more. He needed to max out his defenses and started printing bilge rats until he reached his cap. Slater had to go with an earlier version of the rats, the later ones weren’t configured for melee combat and had shrunk down to become stealthy grenade carriers. The bilge rats were some of his weaker MOBS, but they used less of his processing power and had one advantage his others didn’t, they could climb. The metal walls of the compartment proved too slick for his rats to get enough traction for climbing so Slater made the choice to delete the bayonets from the kobold rifles, they already had integrated wrist blades which would fit their need for a melee weapon.

Small metal rings were created from the remaining salvage which he then installed around the ceiling, giving the bilge rats plenty of places to dangle from while they waited for targets. The only problem was getting them up there. Slater didn’t have enough material to make a ladder, so he went with the simple solution, the orcs just gave them a boost. It worked and at the same time seemed to amuse Pixi to no end, his other personality laughing at the image of a battle-ready orc holding a giant rat over his head.

Slater was ready for the next set of contenders; the only question now was how effective his hodgepodge force would be, and if he could gain the viewers back that he had lost with his defeat.